by Angel Payne
No. Not yet.
As deeply as he longed to throw down the slapper, step to her, unzip, and aim for nirvana, Garrett still felt the weight of King’s assessment. He was supposed to be a moneybags pervert who got off on pain as much as sex. He had to push the act one step harder.
Forcing himself to flick a cocky grin at King, he slid the dragon tail back onto its shelf before pulling out a new pair of play toys. The first, a mini slapper with diamond-shaped holes, got tucked into his pocket. The second was a leather mitt that fit snug around his big hand. He lifted it into the light, watching the entire front surface of the mitt twinkle thanks to the tiny steel tacks embedded into the leather. King let out another commending hum, but Garrett ignored the ass this time, afraid he’d ram the thing into the man’s ugly face.
All that mattered was Sage—who had, unbelievably, gotten five times more gorgeous in the last thirty seconds.
He had no idea how he was going to keep his cock confined for another second, let alone the long minutes it’d take to complete this act of pleasure and pain. The damn thing was now painful cargo between his thighs and got worse with every step he took back to where Sage waited in trembling silence.
Her body was so golden.
Her ass was so red.
Her surrender was so beautiful.
There was no way he could keep his mouth off her—but a gentle kiss on the nape wasn’t going to fly in the believability department. Sweet and soft wasn’t where his instinct yearned to be, anyhow. He gave in to the primal roar that commanded him instead, sweeping her hair off one shoulder in order to sink his teeth into it. Sage gave him a shuddering groan in return, a sound he felt as much as heard. It spurred him to give her another bite, higher on her shoulder and harder into her skin, in the moment before he dragged the tack-lined glove down the middle of her back.
She started to unravel.
And, as she did, was fucking spectacular.
After another long groan from deep in her throat, she arched her head back, making her body smash against the cross. Her shoulders heaved as she pulled in air by raw, desperate spurts. Her arms coiled, twisting the wrist bonds one way and the next. Her profile was awash in bittersweet tension, her eyes closed and her lips wrapped around the bit, soaking the leather as she worked to keep herself halfway composed for him.
Garrett barely held back from crushing his lips on her again. He yearned to taste her, suckle on her, murmur his deep and adoring praise to her. Amazement rode that same tidal wave of reaction. How could it be that here, now, in the deepest throes of her submission, she’d never been more breathtaking to him…or claimed his love with more powerful force? He didn’t bother figuring it out. He was too busy fighting the longing to hold her, enfold her, bury himself inside her until they both couldn’t see straight or talk right…
Damn it, he had to stay focused.
He had to remember what the fuck he was doing here. Why the fuck he was doing it.
He had to play the sadist with her—in order to save her.
Give me just a few minutes more of courage, sugar, and I’ll make it all worth it. I promise.
With a determined sweep of movement, he shifted to stand behind her again. He rotated his hand, assuring that the mitt would cover more skin, before dragging the spikes up the length of Sage’s spine.
The guards oohed and aahed in approval. Sage hissed and twisted, but when there were no raised fingers from her right hand, he pressed in a little harder and stroked the mitt back down. The furrows on Sage’s back began to bloom bright red. He hadn’t broken the skin but had come hideously close—though that wasn’t the factor causing Garrett the most perplexity here. It was the woman beneath the marks. Where Sage had seemed to just tolerate the lashes with the dragon’s tail, this treatment clearly tripped a different switch in her. She didn’t just moan. She keened and begged with need. She didn’t just shiver. She thrashed against her tethers, her body like a stripped electric wire searching for a puddle to plunge into. For a second, Garrett even thought she—
No.
She didn’t really enjoy this, did she?
He tested the theory by plowing some fresh welts from her waist to nape.
Sage didn’t let out a shriek of reaction.
She sighed.
Garrett was damn glad he’d had a few years of experience at disguising sudden shock. He wrestled with a wash of the stuff now, especially because she joined that sound with a subtle buck of her hips. The move bypassed all the crap of this situation, speaking to him alone. Oh hell, how he loved that motion. It usually came on nights where she’d had a little to drink, a lot of foreplay, and was at the point where her body overrode her discretion. She became something different on those nights, a creature of raw need, begging him to fill her and fuck her.
But this was more than that—and it had taken this extreme situation for him to see it. The bizarreness of that recognition was overridden by the bigger truth of it. Only now could he see that the pain he’d dealt her had acted like a key in a lock for her, throwing open doors that had been shut inside her for so long. Too long. Now the portals were unbolted, setting free a creature he could have never imagined inside his woman, wild and aching and beautiful…
And needing.
Yes, Sage actually needed him now. Her circuit was tripped but not complete. She’d been opened but not detonated.
She needed more.
Garrett started the next stroke of the mitt between her shoulder blades. He didn’t end until he’d gotten to her ass, and then he raked the tacks across her suede whip tracks too.
This time, she screamed.
He gave her a moment to process the sensations. But only one.
He let the mitt slip from his hand before he kicked it out of the way on his surge to press against her. With primal need, he bracketed her hips with his. He was finished with not touching her, not connecting to her. He needed to feel her heartbeat, taste her sweat, smell her arousal, absorb her ultimate explosion of power.
That meant taking her over the edge.
He was damn glad he’d brought along the mini slapper.
The five-inch paddle, made of leather with little diamond cutouts, had been more of an accessory in the charade for King. But right now, even the ruse was secondary to giving this brave, bold, amazing woman what she needed the most—a release from herself. A release into him. Because of him.
Hell. He was really starting to understand why Z loved this shit so much.
He was on fire now, blazing with the need to rocket them both higher. His thighs coiled with it. His cock throbbed with it. He knew Sage felt it too. She tilted her head back against him, her neck arched in sensual splendor. Little rivers of her saliva dripped from the edges of her mouth, and he burned her skin with the false beard as he leaned in, licking the liquid off her chin.
“You taste so fucking good,” he growled. “And you’re gonna feel even better, aren’t you, with your body wrapped around my cock?” He punctuated that by sliding his hand over her throbbing mound. “You’re going to take me deep, little girl. You’re going to take every inch I give you, every inch I fuck you with. But first”—he brought the slapper around and positioned it over that wet, open apex—“you’re going to take this.”
Smack.
He brought the paddle down with unwavering force.
Sage crashed her hips back, letting out a long moan.
Garrett dipped his other hand between her thighs, plunging two fingers into her slick, sweet cunt. He locked them there as he lowered the slapper to her clit. He did it again. Her tunnel convulsed around him, heaving and kneading, sucking at his digits. The answering instinct in his senses flared hotter, and he filled her ear with the rough breaths of that awakening beast. All the while, he didn’t let his fingers slip from inside her. With a determined twist, he spread her more, letting her know just where he planned to go when he replaced his fingers with his dick.
She quivered around him. Gasped again.
He raised the paddle and dealt her two more smacks. With only a half beat in between, he gave her two more. Then a pair that were harder.
The only sound he got in return was his woman’s harsh, heaving breaths. But there wasn’t a single moan or mewl between the gasps. Beneath him, Sage was limp and pliant, completely abandoned to him, open and ready. Her channel continued stroking his fingers as if worshipping them, pulsing in the cadence of a sexual prayer chant. Please fuck me…please fuck me…please fuck me…
Yes. Oh damn, yes.
He hurled the slapper away. After pulling his fingers out of her pussy, he frantically loosened his belt and fly. Inside seconds, his cock had freedom at last. No, wait. In the seconds after that, it had freedom. Every inch he parted her folds and sank into her was another cloud his senses hit on the way to bliss. He could finally give it all back to her. The strength, the courage, the agony, the ecstasy. Everything. He soared as he pounded it all into her, fucking her with every inch of his sex, every drop of his sweat, every piece of his heart. That was just the beginning. He swore not to stop until his soul crashed the gates of hers, and she knew he planned to stay there forever.
“Deeper.” He drilled it at her as he dug his fingers into her hips. “All the way, girl. You’ll take every inch of it. Every drop of come it gives you.”
Behind him, there was a drone of conversation. Maybe it was more, as if the guards and even King himself were giving out verbal high fives. Garrett’s senses were too far gone to care. The surface of the lake outside could have gone up in flames and not rivaled the bonfire of his body.
He pumped even harder when the flames turned to lava, pooling heavily in his balls. He flattened his chest to Sage’s spine, allowing nothing between her and the cross except his hand, sliding to find the erect nub of her hottest desire. Her clit was hard and hot between his fingers. Amazing. She felt so fucking amazing.
Her whole body shook as he relentlessly rubbed the sensitive ridge. He didn’t stop until she started screaming again, her torment shrill, insane, and exquisite.
“Do it.” He gave the order into her ear as he tugged at her clit. He flicked just the tip with his thumb. “Do it now, girl. Now!”
Her orgasm was so intense, her scream ceased to make noise. Just fine by him. The tension translated all the way through her cunt, squeezing her walls on him, making it impossible to resist the fiery flood of his own eruption. Come raced up his cock, bursting from him with violent, radiant intensity. His ass clenched. His thighs quivered. A bellow tore off his lips.
“Fuck!”
The chitchat in the room stopped. Or maybe his blood thundered so loud it drowned every other decibel in the place. Whatever the explanation, Garrett descended back to reality on a parachute of comfort that took its time catching full air, especially when he looked to the guards—and their gapes still collectively fixed on his woman. And why the hell not? She was a wild, kinky dream incarnate. Her body was marked. Her pussy glowed. Her limbs were still spread and bound…
He was seriously going to kill someone tonight. Maybe a whole handful of the maggots, if they didn’t get back to their goddamn posts.
One of the goons laughed like he’d heard that thought and couldn’t wait to disprove it. He was just a kid, except for the depraved glint in his eyes. He handed his gun to the lackey next to him as he reached for his fly. “The slut is mine next.”
After two wide steps, Garrett had the fucker’s collar in his fist. “The merchandise is mine.” He barely remembered to keep up the fake moneybags accent. “Put the little wiener away, Drecksau, and do your fucking job.”
King burst out with a placating laugh. Greedy jackoff would chuckle at his own mother’s funeral if somebody paid him for it. “Klaus, my friend! Such a show! So I assume you are…satisfied with your sample?”
Garrett didn’t spare a glimpse at the dickwad. “Ja.” Instead, he concentrated on getting Sage ungagged, blindfold-free, and off the cross. After removing the bindings off her head and face, he unfastened the four cuffs. She stayed plastered to the wood, unable to move on her own. Carefully, he peeled away her sweat-soaked body, turning her enough to gather her in his arms. “We have a deal, Mr. King. Now get me a damn blanket. I don’t want the toy damaged by the cold.”
One of the guards handed over a flannel blanket. Garrett wrapped it around Sage before pacing back to the little living room area. As he bundled her close, he settled into the corner of a couch located close to the bar area. Tucked behind the wide wood counter was a service door. He, Z, and Wyatt had spotted the portal the second they’d entered and exchanged glances to identify it as their best escape route—if they needed it. They conjectured, based on the exterior floor plan they’d memorized from the drone shots Franzen had ordered, that the door led to a service portico from the kitchen. From there, they’d have the option of making a break for the Escalade they’d driven here or signaling to the SOC-R boat waiting for them out on the lake, manned with a team who were ready to speed in for a water extraction.
But only if they needed it.
Zeke and Wyatt had used the distraction of the last half hour to get Josie and Rayna nearer to the door too. All looked good for their contingency plan, but a seamless mission was always much better than Plan B. As King settled into a chair opposite them, looking relaxed as Pluto gazing on the River Styx, Garrett could practically taste their hitch-free ending to this nightmare. All they had to do was pay the asshole off. They’d be out the door with the girls, and the FBI would take over for their part of taking King down.
Z stepped over and sat next to him on the couch. In one hand, he carried a sizable leather briefcase. Inside was the king’s ransom they’d be turning over to this gutter shit, along with the dozen tracking beacons that had been molded into the “rubber bands” around the bills inside. Even if King decided to split up the load, they’d be able to follow his money trails. Thank fuck for micro technology.
King cast a lingering stare on the case. Garrett wouldn’t be surprised if the snake started drooling next. “It is all there, my friend,” he assured. “Twenty-five thousand for each of the women and your finder’s fee of fifteen thousand.”
King spread his hands. “I have no doubt of that, my friend. I am simply perplexed we are discussing payment now.” He flicked his gaze to Zeke. “Surely you and Gustav are interested in having your own test sessions?”
Z cocked one brow with well-practiced ease. “Will the other two do what she just did?”
King flashed a dirty grin. “Absolutely.”
“Then take the money. I have plans for my new acquisition that do not involve putting my dick on public spectacle.”
Garrett was tempted to chuckle. He was damn glad they’d gotten a recording of that. Cover identity or not, he was pretty sure that was the first and last time he’d hear Zeke turn down an offer to play with a subbie for an audience. For a long second, King scrutinized Z as if he didn’t believe it either. But he’d seen Zeke maintain his cool in situations like this—hell, worse than this—for close to five years now. King wasn’t the first leech they’d had to pry off humanity’s ass. He wouldn’t be the last. Garrett just wished he could make it hurt a little worse for the bastard, like demanding he hand over his balls along with the girls.
Z unlocked the case by pushing on a remote fob that hung on a chain around his neck. When the lock buttons pulsed green, he pushed the case to King. Garrett half expected King to cackle with glee, and King’s smirk hinted that way, but the bastard kept his cool while popping the case latches.
Reverently, King lifted back the lid.
Whoa. Seventy-five thousand dollars looked nice when it was all pretty, lined up and bundled. But the only thing Garrett saw was Zeke and himself in the hallway outside Franz’s office, waiting to have their asses tossed into slings if King really got away with that money. But this was part of the process. One more step to cross off on the glitch-free list. He forced back an impatient sigh, but it pushed in his throat again w
hen Sage started stirring in his arms. The endorphins she’d been swimming in were starting to evaporate. Her back and her ass would start stinging soon. Goddamn, how much longer?
Apparently, much longer. With the speed of a turtle in the sun, King took out a map magnifier. He perused several hundred-dollar notes from the top of the stacks. After verifying the authenticity of the money, the guy looked back up and smiled again. “It is an immense pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen.” He pointed at Z’s chest. “And I shall take that little toy of yours now too.”
Zeke closed his fist over the fob. “You get the toy when we leave with the merchandise.”
King pouted. “Come now. Is that any way to treat a new friend? I have shown I can be trusted, have I not? Tit for tat is in order, gentlemen, if you desire to earn the same from me. Or perhaps you do not desire to earn the same?”
The bastard’s gaze narrowed. The expression had “glitch” written all over it. Instinctively, Garrett pulled Sage in tighter. He felt a matching degree of tension roll off Zeke. His friend emitted a growl. “You have seventy-five thousand reasons to trust us, friend.”
King backpedaled fast. With a nervous laugh, he spread his hands once again. “But of course. I wasn’t implying—”
“Mmmm.”
Sage’s groan, while loud, wasn’t what yanked King to a stunned stop. It was the hand she slinked up around Garrett’s neck, trying to pull him down for a fierce kiss. Garrett acted on sheer instinct in complying with her behest, hoping their long, tongue-tangling embrace swirled enough happy subbie mental mist back into her that she dropped into blissful silence again.
He should have known better.
The strength of her grip, the passion of her mouth, the undulation of her body… They all should have blasted one massive warning sign in his senses. Massive Glitch Ahead.
It happened as soon as he tried to clear the hair from her face. Her eyes, still glassy and lost, focused on him like some cravat-necked lord from one of her costume romance movies. Her lips, shiny and swollen, lifted in a dreamy smile.